Iron Maiden's Steve Harris To Take Side Project British Lion On March UK Tour

Iron Maiden bassist Steve Harris will be taking his new solo/side project British Lion out on the road next month visiting fourteen countries and twenty four cities across Europe, including four shows here in the UK.

Steve comments: ÄI love touring and live shows and IÃ­m very excited about touring with British Lion. ItÃ­s fantastic to get out there and once again experience the sheer vibrancy of small clubs with the fans right up front and in your face. I think the fans will enjoy that too. ItÃ­s exciting, going back to the roots, and itÃ­s going to be fantastic. We are taking this to clubs all round Europe - a full club tour, with club shows at club prices, hot, sweaty and loud. We have no idea how many people will turn out to see us as itÃ­s obviously very recent and very new, so we have kept the venues small with tickets priced accordingly as low as we reasonably could.

IÃ­ve known all the guys in the band for ages and, besides being great musicians, they are also good friends, which is lucky because this has been an ongoing project for many years! TheyÃ­ve had to be very patient with me as, of course, IÃ­m so involved with Maiden I donÃ­t really get a lot of free time to work on other stuff. So itÃ­s great to finally have the opportunity to get out and do all these shows. The reaction to the album has been really good and I think it will sound great live. WeÃ­re all planning to have a lot of fun on this tour!Ä

'British Lion' is SteveÃ­s debut CD outside Iron Maiden and was released by EMI in September last year. Featured alongside Steve are Richard Taylor on vocals, David Hawkins on guitar and keys, Grahame Leslie on guitar, and Simon Dawson on drums. The 10-track album was mixed by Kevin Shirley [MaidenÃ­s longstanding producer] and has been met with warm reviews from the music press who also commented that although itÃ­s stamped with SteveÃ­s inimitable style, itÃ­s also very different to Maiden, so fans will be in for a whole new experience seeing and hearing these new songs played live.